


Setting the Date

by Unforgotten



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Proposals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 04:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1885410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are plenty of things from their alternate future Charles and Erik would never want...but there's at least one thing they can look forward to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Setting the Date

**Author's Note:**

> I actually meant to have a line or two in about this in [Old Men's Heads](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1855726), but I totally forgot, so now I've written a whole separate fic about it instead. XD
> 
> This is definitely the same continuity as Old Men's Heads, and if I write a third one I'll make it a series. :)

"—What was that?" Erik says sharply. "What you just said."

It takes Charles a moment to backtrack enough to remember exactly what it was that he just said. "I said, 'I'm sure my other self wouldn't have married your other self if he were all _that_ terrible.'"

They're having the hundredth rendition of the argument about their future selves, the one where Erik insists that he's ever so much better than the other him. He seems to think it's a competition, as most of these arguments involve him stubbornly insisting that they're winning, so who cares about what their other selves did or thought? 

He's even been known to argue that the other version of himself couldn't possible be _him_ , but rather a completely different person who just happened to share the same name and the same history up until 1973. Personally, Charles is inclined to disagree, largely on the basis that while Erik may never have relocated the Golden Gate Bridge—as Charles is near to certain he glimpsed a much older version of Erik doing in one of Logan's memories—he most certainly did plant a stadium around the White House directly before trying to kill the president on national television. It all seems to come from the same place, as far as Charles is concerned. Erik simply doesn't care to admit that, in another life, a life without any warning about what was to come, he helped create exactly the future he's always been so afraid of.

"We were married?" Erik asks, and though he doesn't visibly soften, the change in his mood is evident in the tenor of his thoughts. "You never mentioned that."

Charles is completely certain he's mentioned it at least three times over the past few years—but then, Erik's never been very good at listening, especially when what he's generally looking for during these discussions is a place to jump in and disagree. "Yes, we were. And yes, I have mentioned it," he says.

"When does that happen?"

"When does it become legal, or when do we get married?"

"Either. Both."

"I haven't the foggiest," Charles says. "I'd imagine the latter was fairly late in the game, all things considered."

Erik gives him a disbelieving look, the way he always does whenever Charles doesn't know every detail of some future happening. As if he'd had the time to grill Logan about the date for a wedding that seemed a million times more unlikely then than it does now, while he was in the middle of detoxing and other personal crises, not to mention trying to stop Raven and Erik himself. As if it's not Erik's own fault that their messenger got sent back early, anyway.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have thrown Logan into the Potomac if you didn't want to be surprised," Charles says, just because he knows it annoys Erik whenever he points this out.

*****

The next day, Erik's gone when Charles wakes up. It's not unusual for him to go off on his own for a day, though he usually lets Charles know where he's going unless they've just been fighting—really fighting, accusations, screaming, name-calling, the whole lot.

Charles hates it when Erik does this. Part of him always wonders if Erik's going to come back, this time. It took several years after Erik's return for them to come to a compromise on the issue: Charles doesn't accuse Erik of abandoning him, or grill him when he gets home, just so long as he returns within twenty-four hours of leaving.

This time, Erik gets home later in the evening, right after dinner. Since they haven't actually been fighting, Charles saved him a plate.

"Where were you today?" Charles asks when they're on their way to bed. He's not necessarily very good at holding up his side of their agreement yet, not to mention that it doesn't really count when they haven't been fighting.

"Out," Erik says, not as brusquely as he generally does when it's meant to be a huge secret that he drove around aimlessly for six hours while fuming, then came home and paced on the roof for several more hours while fuming some more. "I had to do some shopping."

Erik loathes shopping, except when it's for something to wear. Given that he didn't come in the house with twenty shopping bags, Charles assumes this is a suspicious lie for several seconds, which is how long it takes before Erik fishes a small box out of his pocket and hands it to him.

"... _Oh_ ," Charles says before he's even opened it. There can be little doubt what a velvet box this shape and size is meant to hold, and it comes as no surprise when he opens it to find two gold men's wedding rings. They're wide, and plain, and beautiful.

"It couldn't wait that long," Erik says. "I didn't want to wait. What do you think?"

Charles picks up one of the rings, examining it. There's not a single mark on the outside, and no stone, but when he looks inside the band, it says, in lettering that mirrors Erik's own handwriting exactly, ' _E.L. & C.X. ~ June 6, 1962_'

In all honesty, Charles expected to be the one to propose, however many years from now. He'd have taken Erik out to a nice restaurant, the ring in his pocket. He's have driven Erik mad by not saying a word about the ring all through dinner, knowing full well Erik could feel it. He never imagined Erik would propose to him when they're both in their pajamas, when it'll be years yet, maybe decades before they can make it official.

"June sixth," Charles says. "That's the day we met."

"It's the day we're going to get married," Erik says, all bravado. "Since you can't remember what the other one was supposed to be."

If their other selves were able to choose a date, Charles has little doubt it was the sixth of June, of whatever year. He can't imagine a date that would have more meaning, be more significance to any version of them, in any lifetime. And maybe it's unlikely that they were able to be so choosy, on the run and on the defensive in the middle of a terrible war, but Charles very much likes the idea that they did.

He doesn't think he'll tell Erik that, however. Erik might change his mind about the date then, just to be contrary. He's going to spend years already pouting that he didn't think of getting married someday before hearing about their future selves having done it.

"Yes," Charles says, "I suppose it is."


End file.
